


Slayer

by Oroburos69



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oroburos69/pseuds/Oroburos69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy is as constrained by her instincts as Spike is by his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slayer

Buffy finds Spike curled up in a shadowed corner of his crypt, a withered husk halfway to raisin. He shies away from her, dry skin rasping over the stone floor, and Buffy hesitated, a stake in her hand and no memory of how it got there. She hasn't seen him in weeks, hasn't gone looking, first out of anger, then out of shame.

Putting the stake away scrapes on her nerves, like her shoes not quite matching her outfit--a niggling sense that it's wrong all wrong.

Buffy can’t leave him, even if she wants to. She can't kill him either, even if it'd be easier.

Spike raises one eyebrow like he can't quite believe that she's doing it either, and that helps. Defying their expectations is good, and Buffy doesn't have to fight herself to do it.

It’s easy to lift him, easy to carry him. He’s light and thin and helpless, sarcastic eyebrows or not. He breathes, suddenly, air rasping into dead lungs, but doesn't speak up.

She takes him home.

The basement has windows, but there are blinds that block out the sun. He will be safe. Buffy checks, just to make sure, and when she comes back to him, his eyes are laughing at her.

Buffy drags the guest bed down the stairs, grunting when the mattress catches on the door. The mattress goes into the darkest corner, half hidden by the washer and dryer. Spike watches dully, propped up against a cement wall, not breathing, not moving and something in her screams _kill it_.

Dawn hurries down, bunches of pillows under her arms, pillowcases and sheets clutched in her hands. She shoos Buffy upstairs, telling her to get the comforter—the nice one—and makes the bed with faded pink and blue sheets. She glances at Spike from time to time as she shakes pillows into pillowcases, but he doesn't talk, and Dawn doesn't either.

Buffy listens as she grabs blankets from the closet, straining her ears to hear if they have something to say to each other, but unless Slayer hearing is letting her down, they don't. Buffy jogs down the stairs, adrenaline pumping into her as she gets closer.

The sun is rising behind the blinds, and Spike winces at the dim light, his skin beginning to smoke. Buffy pushes him toward a corner, farther away from the sunlight. Dawn shakes out the comforter and spreads it over the bed.

It’s too bright in the house to take him up to the bathroom, but Spike is filthy. The black rags he’s wearing hang off his bones, and he smells (reeks) of stale, old blood and the scent of stone dust, sharp and cold.

Dawn opens the dryer and pulls out a pair of old sweatpants and a tee-shirt Buffy sleeps in. The basket of clean towels gives her a wash cloth, and she offers all three to Spike, nodding toward the laundry sink that she never uses.

Buffy opens her mouth to protest, but stops when Dawn looks at her, her eyes sharp and accusing. Spike stumbles when he tries to walk, and Buffy wraps her arm around his waist and supports him. Nothing beats inside his chest, just a vast hole of emptiness, and her skin flinches at being so close. Dead things freak her out. Always have, always will.

Spike sets the clothes on the ground and fumbles with his shirt. Buffy helps him pull it off, barely noticing Dawn leaving over the pounding need to throw him away from her, slam him to the ground and feel him turn to dust beneath her. She overcomes it because he's helpless, and Buffy protects the helpless. Most of the helpless. Some of the helpless and Spike. Buffy sighs.

Spike is skeletal, too thin to be alive (he's lucky to be dead) and weak. He can’t turn the faucets; they’re stiff from lack of use. Buffy twists them open for him, and a clean stream of water pours out into the basin. She grabs him a towel to dry off with, and then escapes up the stairs to the kitchen, her heart pounding and her hands shaking.

They don’t have blood, but there’s orange juice. Buffy stares into the fridge for a moment—more than a moment—giving Spike time to wash, to get clean, giving herself time to push down the seething mass of instinct and training that begs her to go back down the stairs and kill him. Dawn is conspicuously absent, probably being viciously disapproving in her room, while plotting to go to see him as soon as Buffy is gone.

Buffy holds her breath until she can remember that Spike is more than just a vampire, just like she is more than just a slayer. Eventually, she grabs the carton and a cheerful yellow mug and stomps down the stairs, letting him know that she is coming.

Spike looks up at her entrance and smiles, thin lips stretching across a gaunt face. His cheek bones jut aggressively through skin, the lines of his skull obvious. He hasn't fed since Buffy beat the stuffing out of him, almost a month ago. He probably couldn't--she'd felt his bones breaking, just hadn't cared. Buffy stops thinking and lets her new best friend, Emptiness, take over. It was better than guilt.

Dressed in her clothes, the sweats barely covering his knees, but loose enough, he looks harmless. The tee-shirt is large on him (it’s large on her too), and Buffy has to smile at seeing him in pink. It suits him. He holds onto the sink with white bony fingers, swaying.

A voice inside her snarls, _vampire_ , Buffy shrugs, her shoulders twitching from the tension she can’t get rid of, and lifts the juice and mug, showing them to him. “We don’t have blood,” she tells him, realizing as she says it that it's a lie, because of course she has blood. It’s in her veins. “Do you want orange juice?”

He nods, and stumbles away from the sink. Buffy catches him, and leans him against the wall as she pulls back the sheets. Spike collapses onto the mattress, and Buffy puts the juice down to tuck him in. His eyes are half-open (and even they look dry) and he watches her like she’s giving him something precious. Buffy doesn't like that look on him. Can't bring herself to accept it, because she knows she doesn't deserve it.

Buffy pulls back and pours a mug of orange juice, not quite meeting that adoring gaze. She leaves it half full, and stares into the dim orange depth, then sets it on the concrete for a moment, going to the chest of broken weapons. She grabs a silver knife, hilt too wobbly for use, and returns to Spike’s side.

He sighs softly, hand half-stretched out to the mug, fingers twitching before he gives up. Buffy cuts open her palm, slicing through the centre. It hurts more than her wrist would, but she doesn’t need people thinking she’s suicidal. She already knows how far they'll go to bring her back, and doesn't quite dare see how far they'll go to keep her.

Spike snorts, nostrils flaring as he scents her blood, his lungs rattling inside him like paper bags. Buffy sets down the knife before she does something horrible. This used to be easier. She used to be better at it. 

“With the orange juice?” she asks, cupping the welling blood in palm of her hand as his eyes flash yellow. _Kill it_. She ignores her instincts, focusing on how thin he is, how close to broken. The Slayer shivers, pleased.

Spike reaches for her hand, trembling. Not a threat. Buffy settles on the side of the mattress, her hip settling into the sharp hollow of his waist. Cold fingers grip her wrist, and a dozen ways to break his hand flit through her mind. Spike pulls her hand towards his mouth, fangs descending, his face warping. Buffy helps him, lifting him onto her legs, his dead body curling into her warmth.

The Slayer inside is so close to her surface that Buffy can hear the rattle of bones and her hissing song of warning echo through the basement.

Spike laps the stray trickles of blood from her hand before they could drip onto the sheets, soft eager noises coming from his mouth. It’s the first noise he’s made since she found him, and Buffy is pleased.

She presses her palm against his mouth. Spike’s tongue slides along the edges of the cut, forcing blood from her veins. It hurts, but Buffy doesn’t mind, eager for a distraction from the urge to twist his head until his neck snaps. She pets his hair with her free hand, damp curls clinging to her fingers, and brushes her lips across his temple in a soft kiss. It means _I'm sorry_. It's not like Buffy can say it (she's not sure she means it), but he deserves her apology. She should have made it quick and clean. He would have done that for her.

Spike’s hand grabs hold of Buffy’s ankle carefully, loose enough that she could pull away. She smiles and picks up the orange juice, drinking from the carton.


End file.
